


Unkindest Cut

by Diane_C



Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian, Master and Commander - All Media Types, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-25
Updated: 2013-01-25
Packaged: 2017-11-26 21:35:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/654641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diane_C/pseuds/Diane_C
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stephen returns to the ship and requires some assistance from Jack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unkindest Cut

**Author's Note:**

> After reading and re-reading Patrick O’Brian’s wonderful Aubrey/Maturin series, I felt at a loss and consoled myself by writing fic. Since coming up with good first lines is often tough for me, I decided to borrow quotes directly from the books to kick things off -- so the opening words in italics are O'Brian's. (No spoilers for the series.)

 

**Unkindest Cut**

  
  
_They brought him aboard to the heartiest cheers, helped him up the side with so zealous a welcome that he would have been pitched into the waist if Jack had not clasped him with both hands. “Welcome aboard, Doctor,” he cried, and the ship’s company called out, “Welcome aboard - aye, aye - hear him - welcome aboard - huzzay, huzzay!’ in defiance of all good order and discipline._  
  
Stephen responded to this reception with a bemused smile and what appeared to be mild alarm. Though clearly moved, he was never one for public displays, and Jack saw him flinch away from the more exuberant seamen's hearty blows of greeting.  
  
“Make a lane there, shipmates,“ Jack said tolerantly, taking Stephen’s elbow. “Lord, you're soaked! Come, come below and shift your clothes. Bonden, see to the doctor’s dunnage. Careful with his collections, there. How do you manage to get so wet, Stephen?”  
  
“Perhaps it’s all this water,” said Stephen, gesturing vaguely. “There is a veritable sea of it.”  
  
“Oh, that. Yes, it’s wet enough, I daresay. Watch your head, Stephen, have you forgotten to duck? Killick!” he called, ushering Stephen into the great cabin, “The doctor’s come home at last. Light along some coffee, won’t you, and perhaps some sandwiches --”  
  
“Which I made ‘em when I saw his boat, didn’t I,” muttered Killick, setting down a pot and a plate with a grim show of satisfaction. “Just as he likes ‘em. Though a mop and towel might answer better, him dripping all over the deck.”  
  
Stephen gazed at the spreading pool at his feet, blinked like a man waking, and looked up. “I thank you, Preserved Killick. Never trouble yourself now, I’ll see to it.” He turned to Jack, said very quietly, “Dismiss him,” and turned away.  
  
Jack, sensing this instruction came from the intelligence agent, not his ship's surgeon nor yet his best friend, composed his face into a casual mask and did as he was told with a genial bustling, repeating “Thankee, Killick” as he closed and bolted the door. He returned instantly to Stephen’s side, and he saw the first drops of blood, falling in a rhythm, staining the puddle of seawater.  
  
“Forgive my abruptness, Jack,” said Stephen, glancing up. “But it would not do for Killick to see. A man who has been enjoying a solitary bout of naturalizing rarely returns having been pierced with a sword.” He drew his hand from beneath his waistcoat and examined it; it was slick and crimson, and he slid it back into place.  
  
“My God,” breathed Jack, and he caught Stephen as he fell. Jack now felt Stephen's heat beneath his wet clothing, noticed the shine of fever in his pale eyes. "Sit here, old Stephen. Lean back against me." The waistcoat was blooming with red now. Jack fumbled with the buttons.  
  
"My dressings are sodden," said Stephen, his hand still pressed in place, "my sutures have opened."  
  
"Good Lord, did you sew yourself up?"  
  
"Not well, not well, to my shame. I was poorly prepared. Handled things badly all around. Jack, bless you, not my shirt, I feel cold."  
  
Stephen's head was heavy against Jack's shoulder; an unnatural lassitude seemed to have taken him, and Jack, fearing he might sleep, said with hollow cheer, "Doctor, you may not drain your lifeblood upon my stern locker, for Killick would never forgive me the mess. Tell me what I must do to help you. ...Stephen."  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
"Tell me."  
  
"Oh yes. Yes. My wits are astray," sighed Stephen, "fool that I am. I need my kit, please, Jack. From my cabin."  
  
"Of course. I will need to leave you, though."  
  
"Well, yes, I expect you must," Stephen said with a peevishness Jack found heartening. "I shall try not to expire in your absence."  
  
Jack helped him recline onto the locker, a boat cloak beneath his head. He returned to find Stephen swabbing his wound with the tail of his opened shirt, his soaked bandages tossed aside. Jack knelt beside him with an inward cry at the sight of fresh blood and torn sutures on a shockingly long gash.  
  
"In my bag are needles and gut," said Stephen as he pulled his loose stitches free. "You will thread one, if you please. Jack, why do you gape. I have seen you thread a needle innumerable times."  
  
"Not for _flesh_ , Stephen!"  
  
"I assure you the principle is the same. My dear, you have a sailor's skill with stitchery, you are neatness itself. May I adjure you to lose not a moment?"  
  
"Lord, Lord," fretted Jack, threading briskly, "surely you're not suggesting I do the grisly deed."  
  
"I do suggest it. But first, alcohol and a cloth, please. I cleaned this ashore, but poorly, poorly in my haste. No, _brown_ bottle, Jack. Thank you. Infection is my chief fear," murmured Stephen, who seemed to be speaking somewhat at random as he worked. "Calenture, marked fever already established. Languor is exhibited; weakness; distraction threatens. Tremor," he said as he finished; he studied his raised hand, the cloth trembling. His head sank against the makeshift pillow. "Thirty stitches should answer, Jack. Thirty stitches and my gratitude."  
  
Jack gazed at the wound, at the curved needle in his hand, and then at Stephen's face: eyes closed, cheeks flushed, and the most rare, remarkable expression of passive trust.  
  
Jack was staggered. Everything within him rebelled at the task he'd been given; no part of him was willing to place needle to flesh. Yet here was Stephen's sure willingness to place himself in Jack's hands, and Jack was singularly moved.  
  
He swallowed and began. In, and out. "Oh Christ, oh Christ," he said to himself, both in prayer and profanity. "Oh Christ."  
  
"You sew well," said Stephen softly. His voice had the dreamy quality Jack had heard from him before, in fever. "You'll find it a pleasure I'm sure. More yielding than canvas, more resilient than duck."  
  
"Oh good God, Stephen." Jack paused and shut his eyes. "Please... you need to be still."  
  
"Do I move? I do not. I am still, a stone."  
  
Jack worked in silence for a time, save for the harshness of his breathing when he remembered to breathe. "Who did this," he wondered as he stopped to swab new blood, and he must have said it aloud.  
  
"My source. A good contact. A long-time friend, a friend from university." Stephen still spoke languidly, but with a very unsettling chill. "He stabbed me as we embraced, in parting. I was wholly surprised."  
  
Jack wordlessly resumed his task.  
  
"I drew away," continued Stephen, "and the cut is not as deep as he would have liked. Though it is long, long and unkind, and may yet serve his purpose."  
  
"No, Doctor, it will not."  
  
"Perhaps not," Stephen sighed. "And his success would mean little to him now, since he is dead. Food for wolves upon a mountaintop." And with a slight, unpleasant smile, "Your hands grow still."  
  
Jack shook his head.  
  
"I understand your distaste with me. I feel it too, and the indulgence of shame, foolish shame, blind shame, for I delivered myself to him with almost no reservation. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I had thought the ability to trust was burned from me long ago. Burned away, cut away. Never again. No man. Please, Jack, would there be any water at all?"  
  
"Yes. A moment." Jack carefully tied off the thread, snipped it, and wiped the blood from his hands. Water spilled from the jug as he poured, but after a breath or two he could hold the cup steadily to Stephen's lips.  
  
"Thank you, soul," whispered Stephen as Jack lowered him to the pillow. "And a very pretty seam it is, too."  
  
His eyes fell closed, his head rolled to the side, and Stephen's cheek came to rest in the palm of Jack's hand.  
  
~end~  
  
(Opening quote is from _The Wine-Dark Sea_ , page 222, Norton paperback edition)


End file.
